


the hollow girl

by SassyJarSkull



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Post-THB, Spoilers for books 1-3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyJarSkull/pseuds/SassyJarSkull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of her momentous decision, Lucy tries to move forward. Meanwhile, the rest of Lockwood & Co struggles to adjust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> Vague summary is vague. Apologies; I didn't want to spoil anyone who hadn't read THB! This is a Lucy-centric THB continuation of sorts, so spoilers abound. T rating is for underage drinking, some adult themes, and language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening: Apartment - Young the Giant
> 
> (after leaving my apartment
> 
> I feel this cold inside me)

The Stalker across the street was keeping pace with me.

It shouldn't have felt so terrifying. As ghosts go, it was hardly impressive—maybe a strong Type One at best. On an ordinary day, I could handle one of those in my sleep.

This was not an ordinary day.

I was used to roaming the streets of London long after Curfew, but never like this—never  _alone_. In the past I'd always been flanked by George and Lockwood, the three of us striding along like we were taking a Sunday morning stroll through the park. I'd walked the streets after dark exhausted, frustrated, soaked and muddy, smoking and covered in ectoplasm stains, and, on one memorable occasion, smelling like jalapeño peppers. But I'd never walked them afraid.

The Stalker began to drift ever-so-slightly nearer—abnormal behavior for a Type One. According to the  _Fittes Manual_ , Stalkers are only supposed to follow at a distance and never "draw near the living in an aggressive manner," but evidently this one had other ideas. I concluded that I'd have to get off the street, even if it meant ducking into some seedy pub—probably the only thing still open at this hour. I told myself I wasn't afraid, that my need for shelter had nothing to do with the Visitor. It was, after all, just after midnight in late November, and I could see wisps of my own breath illuminated by the ghost-lamp on the corner. Whether due to the ghost or to the season, it was bitterly cold.

I cast around for an open establishment. No luck. Every window on the block was dark, every shop sealed up tight, every resident of this shabby section of Nunhead safely ensconced behind their barriers of iron and silver. Meanwhile, the Stalker had drawn closer—it was now hovering above the middle of the street, and its faint, rattling breaths had increased in volume. I struggled to keep my heartbeat slow, my steps even, but it was a losing battle. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I cursed myself for having left my rapier behind in my hotel room when I'd departed for this ill-conceived midnight jaunt. What an amateur—I didn't have so much as a grain of salt in my pocket. Maybe I  _deserved_  to be ghost-touched, I reflected glumly. What would Lockwood and George say if they could see me now?

I drove the painful thought from my head and focused on watching the Visitor out of the corner of my eye. Still keeping pace, still flickering above the central reservation. Great. Just great. I kicked at a stray pebble that had lodged itself in the pavement.

Instead of going straight, the rock caught the side of my boot and skittered off to the left, around the corner I had just reached. The clatter of stone on cement was drowned out by a burst of blaring music from the basement of the building three doors down. I sped up, reaching the stairs that led down to the entrance just as the Stalker drifted to within spitting distance.

Whatever this loud place was, it would have to do. I half-ran down the steps to a low door, propped partially open but protected from unwelcome Visitor activity by a strip of iron just in front of the sagging threshold. I barely had time to register the words "WELCOME TO THE RAVEYARD" painted above the lintel before I was swallowed up into the darkness of a blacklit hallway.

The ceiling was low, the air completely still and warm enough to make my ears burn from the sudden change in temperature. I blinked, trying to get my bearings now that the glow of the ghost-lamp was absent.

I was in a shabby, dark-walled hallway, nondescript except for the blacklight and some shredded remains of what must have once been flyers stuck to the walls. I was not alone—a few feet away, a couple not much older than me were snogging passionately. Beyond them other people, most of them in their teens or early twenties, were scattered about in twos and threes, talking and laughing. They seemed to be spilling out of a doorway at the end of the hall, through which the strains of an electric guitar echoed. Wanting to put as much distance between myself and the Visitor outside as possible, I followed the music to its source.

Its source, as it turned out, was a petite, purple-haired girl in sparkly combat boots. She was standing on the edge of a stage above a packed dance floor, violently strumming a guitar and sing-shouting into a microphone. Her audience was a sea of jumping silhouettes and flashes of bright white teeth—this cavernous room, too, was illuminated by blacklight. Aside from the stage, the only thing I could make out clearly was a long banner stretched out over the dance floor. It read, in jagged letters, "4th Annual INSOMNIA! Music Festival," the words situated so that "INSOMNIA!" was twice as big as everything else.

Weird. I had heard of events like this, where reckless teens and twenty-somethings, desperate to prove their invincibility against the Problem, congregated after Curfew to...well, grind on each other and get drunk, by the looks of it. I knew this kind of (literally) underground party happened from time to time, but I'd certainly never been to one before.

All in all, it wasn't a bad place to wait out the night, I decided. It was crowded, stuffy, and smelled like hundreds of people's stale sweat, but at least the purple-haired guitarist could sing on key.

Not wanting to subject myself to the grinding that was going on on the dance floor, I headed for the bar. It would be easy enough to blend in there. Also, I figured that after a day like the one I'd had, I deserved a drink.

 

* * *

 

The goodbyes had been awkward, to say the least. Holly, it turned out, did not handle this sort of thing well. We'd been coexisting peacefully since the events at Aickmere's, but we weren't quite  _friends_ —not yet, anyway. A regretful part of me suspected that, had I stayed, we would have been.

Maybe that was why, after pressing the ham and organic cheese sandwiches she'd made for my journey into my hands, Holly had thrown her arms around my neck—and why I, just as unexpectedly, had returned the embrace.

"Thanks, Holly," I mumbled when we separated, looking down at the sandwiches I held. When I looked back up, it was into George's bespectacled blue eyes.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I guess this is it then."

"I guess so." I tried and failed to smile past the lump in my throat. "I'll miss you, George."

"Yeah," said George, "I'll miss you, too."

We embraced. It was warm, genuine, a bit sweaty, and over much too soon.

"Take care, Luce. Sorry for squashing your sandwiches." I managed a choked laugh as George stepped aside.

And then Lockwood was before me. I took a shaky breath, wanting to delay meeting his eyes for as long as possible.

When I finally looked up, I found his dark eyes boring into mine as though he were trying to read the real reason for my departure on my face. Part of me wanted him to find it—I was tempted to break down, right there in the hall, and tell him the truth about the Fetch, about what had really happened beneath Aickmere Brothers department store. Part of me wanted to hear him tell me I was being silly, reassure me that everything would be all right. Part of me wanted nothing more than to hear him ask me to stay.

I trampled it into oblivion. I could still see, wavering in the air before me, the outline of that other, terrible Lockwood, the hollow boy whose image was seared into my brain, whose words still haunted me.  _I show you the future. This is your doing._

No. I could not stay. I steeled myself for this last goodbye, and as I did, it seemed as though an iron door slammed shut behind Lockwood's eyes, the mirror of my own determination. It echoed with a dull finality, making me feel as though I were already very far away. I waited for him to say something, and realized he was waiting for me to do the same.

I cleared my throat, hesitated. "It's been an honor working with you."

Lockwood nodded. "It's been an honor having you on the team." He was stiff and formal as he shook my hand, and his words rang hollow as the Fetch that had taken his shape beneath Aickmere's.

There was an odd lump in my throat and a prickly burning behind my eyes as I bent down to shoulder my bag. Outside, the taxi that waited to take me to the station honked.

As I turned to leave, long fingers closed gently on my wrist. "Lucy." Now his voice was anything but hollow—instead it overflowed with some emotion I couldn't name. I felt as if I'd once again been confronted with the bone glass—I desperately wanted to look at him, but knew that if I did, I'd be lost.

"Lucy, just...be safe."

Eyes downcast, I nodded. Then, without looking back, I stepped out the door of 35 Portland Row for the last time.

 

* * *

 

I'm not exactly a big drinker. In fact, before that evening, my experience with alcohol had been pretty negligible—a sip here, a half-empty champagne flute there. I decided it would be best to order something mild and nurse it, mostly in order to blend in with the exuberant, tipsy crowd. But any attempt at sensibility was lost when the bartender asked me what I wanted and I blurted "Bourbon, neat." 

Where had  _that_  come from? It had the welcome effect of making me sound sophisticated, as if I ordered whiskey in seedy underground clubs all the time, but now I was stuck drinking  _bourbon_.

I slid to the end of the bar and sipped at my drink, just so I'd look occupied. Its warmth was oddly comforting as it seared its way down my throat. I took a second gulp, then another, and had somehow drained the whole glass by the time the band finished its set. As the lights grew blurry around the edges, I was calmly aware of what a bad idea this whole night had been—but I ordered another bourbon anyway. It wasn't as though I had work in the morning, and besides, already the bourbon was doing its job, dulling the pang in my chest at the thought of  _work_. 

"Hey. Is this seat taken?" It looked like my attempt to disappear into the background hadn't been as successful as I'd hoped—a stocky guy with a flat nose and a scraggly goatee slid into the seat next to me. He looked cocky, self-assured, somewhere in his late teens. Based on the way he spoke and carried himself, I disliked him already. I turned back to what remained of my second drink and did my best to radiate a leave-me-alone vibe.

"I hate drinking alone." He gave me an uncomfortable once-over as he tossed back his own drink and ordered me a third bourbon without bothering to ask my permission. The bartender looked concerned as he slid it over. I bristled. One night without my rapier, and already people looked at me like I was prey, something small and helpless that needed protection. Well, they could all go to hell. I was an _agent_. I'd battled nightmares, defeated monsters both supernatural and earthly, faced down horrors and lived to tell the tale. I wasn't about let some sleazy guy in a bar intimidate me.

I turned, flashed him my most insincere and condescending smile, and pushed the glass away. "No thanks," I told him. "I  _love_  drinking alone."

"Aww, come on now," he said, sidling closer. "Bet you'll like me once you get to know me. I'm Kyle." His grin was supposed to look disarming, but all it did was make me want to punch him even more.

"And I'm not interested," I deadpanned. "Piss off." It was stronger language than I usually used. Evidently this guy had a knack for bringing out the worst in me.

His look of disgruntled disbelief was almost worth the irritating exchange. He got up off of his stool. "Hey, Nate!" he called over his shoulder. A second boy, even bigger and uglier than the one bothering me, emerged from the jostling crowd. So much for drinking alone. The first guy, Kyle, caught his friend's eye and jerked his head in my direction. "Bitch was rude to me." 

I kept silent, but fixed them both with what I hoped was an intimidating glare. Not satisfied, Kyle leaned in close to me, so that I felt his sour breath on my face. "What's wrong, sweetheart? No rude comebacks?"

Ugh, that was  _it_. I reached for my rapier, remembered it wasn't there, and instead swung my fist up, savoring the satisfying crunch as it connected with his jaw. I couldn't suppress a smirk as he stumbled back, cursing. 

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten about the other guy, Nate. Before I could react, he'd yanked me off my stool and twisted my arm around behind my back. I flinched as a jolt of pain shot through my shoulder.

This was the point where, had they been present, Lockwood and George would have stepped in and backed me up. I thought of the way George had tripped Leopold Winkman at the agency carnival, of Lockwood pushing me toward the relative safety of the chapel as an army of menacing thugs advanced in Kensal Green Cemetery. Suddenly I couldn't be sure whether the burning in my throat was due to the alcohol or something else. Unwelcome tears pricked at my eyes as Nate bent forward to whisper in my ear.

"You're gonna regret that, princess."

I readied myself for a fight. I didn't like my chances—even sober I'm much better with a sword than with my bare fists, and at that moment I felt too dizzy and sluggish to present much opposition. I was just about to slam my foot down on Nate's toes when an unfamiliar voice cut through the dull roar of music and background chatter.

"Ohmygod, aren't you the guy who got thrown out of Crucifix Lane last week?"

My attacker looked up at the girl who had spoken, slackening his grip. I took the opportunity to slip free and ram my elbow into his gut—only in my inebriated state, I messed up the angle and the blow ended up glancing off his ribs instead. It was feeble, but effective. I sidestepped, putting distance between myself and Nate as he doubled over, coughing.

I glanced up and found myself staring at the tiny, purple-haired girl who'd been performing when I'd first walked in. She winked at me, so fast I thought I might have imagined it, and went on addressing the young man currently wheezing on the floor.

"It  _is_  you! I  _thought_  I'd find you if I followed the sound of complete and utter patheticness." Her voice was loud and her accent acutely American; she sounded like a valley girl from a teen movie. 

"And look, you brought a friend, too! How  _cute_. Rina, look who's here!" Looming behind the purple-haired girl was one of the tallest women I'd ever seen. She had the same high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes as her companion, but that was where the similarities stopped. The taller girl was dressed simply, in dark jeans and a dark, translucent blouse. She held herself with an elegance that contrasted oddly with her edgy, half-shaved hairstyle and numerous piercings. 

The purple-haired girl held her ground and continued rattling off cheerful insults as Kyle pulled Nate to his feet. "After the Crucifix Lane thing I assumed you'd be, like, too humiliated to ever show your face in public again, but I guess I was wrong! Congrats, you're officially shameless trash."

"Shut up," snarled Kyle.

"Nah, I think I'll keep going. I bet I can do even better than 'shameless trash.' I'm thinking something more like 'vermin.' Or maybe 'waste of space.'"

"Delia," the tall girl admonished, speaking up for the first time. Her petite companion seemed to take this as a cue to wrap things up.

"Anyway,  _vermin_ ," she breezed, hopping onto the stool left vacant by Kyle, "I suggest you stop harassing people and get the fuck out while you still can. If you don't, I can always arrange for a repeat of last week." She waved the bartender over as if about to make good on the threat.

It worked. With a few curses thrown backward over his shoulder at me and my unlikely rescuer, Kyle dragged the still-spluttering Nate away toward the exit. The purple-haired girl turned to me with a conspiratorial grin and patted the empty seat beside her. Too drained and dizzy to protest, I sat. 

"God, I love telling guys like that to go fuck themselves," said my companion, drumming her neon green fingernails on the bar. "I'm Delia, by the way. Delia Wells." She motioned to the bartender, who plunked a glass of clear liquid down in front of me. "Drink that," she ordered.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Water," said Delia. "Geez, are you always this paranoid?" I thought this a stupid question, considering the circumstances of our meeting. Delia must have realized it too, because she backtracked. "You know what, don't answer that. Answer this: what's a squeaky-clean square like you doing in a place like this? It's obviously not your usual thing."

I couldn't help but feel offended at that. Never mind that she was right—I thought I'd been doing a decent job blending in, and my blood alcohol level was high enough that I wasn't in the mood to be told otherwise.

"I'm not a square," I snapped, "and I was handling things just fine when you showed up."

Delia opened her mouth to reply, but her tall companion, now leaning against the bar behind her, cut her off.

"I'm sure you were. My sister didn't mean to offend. We just thought that in your situation, we'd have wanted some help." She too spoke with an American accent, but her voice was low and melodious, soft where Delia's was sharp.

"Yeah, what she said," agreed Delia. "This is Rina, by the way. Well, actually she's Corinna, and I'm  _Cor_ delia, but nobody calls us that. Anyway. We're Rina and Delia Wells, drummer and lead singer-guitarist of critically-acclaimed local indie rock band The Well Well Wells, who you've just had the honor of hearing." She inclined her head in a mock bow. "So. Who are you?"

I hesitated. Should I give them my real name? I wavered; something held me back. "I'm Lu...Louise. Louise Kipps." For the second time that evening, I was left flabbergasted by what had just come out of my mouth. Louise  _Kipps_? This couldn't  _ever_  be allowed to get back to Lockwood and George—I'd never live it down. I took a gulp of water to disguise my mortification.

"Louise. Cute. Kinda suits you." Delia cocked her purple head like a curious bird. "So what drove you into this hellhole, Louise?"

"A ghost."

She blinked in surprise, then exchanged a glance with Rina. "An actual ghost? Like a  _ghost_ -ghost? A Visitor?"

I nodded. "It was following me, out on the street."

Heavily mascaraed eyes narrowed in shrewd appraisal. "So you can see Visitors?"

"And hear them." I felt guilty for having lied about my name, so I decided to stick to the truth this time. Delia let out a low whistle. "Impressive. And what were you doing wandering around Southwark after Curfew?"

"I, uh. I was..." So much for sticking to the truth. I floundered, struggling to think of a plausible lie, but my tired, booze-addled brain wouldn't cooperate.

"Let me guess: you're a runaway."

I pondered that for a second. Since I hadn't gone back to my family after leaving Lockwood & Co., I guessed I sort of  _had_  run away from home. I was meant to have taken the train back up north that morning, but something had stopped me. Instead of boarding my train, I'd sat on a bench in the station, forlorn and numb, and watched it pull away from the platform. In spite of everything, I couldn't go home. It was as if there was some magnetic pull keeping me in London, as if the air somehow grew thicker the farther I got from 35 Portland Row, until it felt like I was moving through treacle. I couldn't bring myself to leave.

When I refocused on my surroundings, Delia was watching me with interest. Behind her, Rina's expression was thoughtful.

Warily, I nodded. "Yeah. I'm a runaway."

Delia clapped her hands together in delight. "I thought so! It makes sense, with that slight northern accent and all. Well, you're in good company. Ri and I are former runaways ourselves. We crossed an entire ocean," she said, making it sound as impressive as if they'd paddled across the Atlantic, "so we know what it's like. Have you got a place to stay?" I shook my head—I'd booked a hotel room for the night, but that hardly counted. 

"Well then, you'll stay with us. We've got plenty of space," Delia announced. Behind her, Rina nodded in support of the suggestion.

I was taken aback by the casual way they'd offered me something so huge. "Wh-what? Stay with  _you_? I...I couldn't," I wavered. 

Delia waved a dismissive hand. "It's seriously nothing. We insist." She tapped her chin, pensive. "If it makes you feel better, you can earn your keep by protecting us from Visitors. It's been a few years since either of us could see them, but we mostly perform at night, so they're an occupational hazard."

"And we need a new manager for the band," added Rina. 

"Our last one eloped to Ibiza with our bassist," Delia explained. "We need a new one of those, too. You wouldn't happen to play bass, would you?" I shook my head. "Wishful thinking. Ah, well. You should absolutely come live with us and be our manager. It's not a bad job, and I promise we don't bite."

I considered the offer. On the one hand, they were complete strangers I'd just met in a shady underground club. On the other...well, it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I hit the sidewalk and this is how it starts)
> 
> Go easy on me, folks—I've never written a multi-chapter fic before. Updates will probably be sporadic, but I'll try my best!


	2. a haunting in marylebone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meanwhile, back at the ranch
> 
> {warning: POV switch ahead}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening: Knot in My Heart - The Zolas
> 
> (some days I wake up with a knot in my heart
> 
> where oh where, where are you?)

"What've we got tonight, Holly?" George tossed his finished comic onto the coffee table.

Holly, perched demurely on the other end of the living room sofa, flipped through her notebook. "Nothing too big. Just one case: a local client, over on Bedford Street. He claims his stepdaughter can't sleep because she hears knocking on her bedroom ceiling at night."

George removed his glasses and began cleaning them on his shirt. "It'll be a Stone Knocker. Small-time stuff," he observed. Ensconced in his usual armchair, Lockwood grunted his agreement.

"I expect things have died down somewhat now that the Chelsea outbreak has been largely eradicated. All thanks to you," Holly shut her notebook with a neat snap.

"Thanks to  _us_ ," corrected George, glancing over at Lockwood. It was true that in the two weeks since the colossal Source beneath Aickmere Brothers department store had been neutralized, psychic activity in London had begun to wane. It was untrue that the three people currently seated in the living room of 35 Portland Row could claim complete credit for the discovery of said Source. 

Holly must have picked up on the silent inclusion of their missing fourth team member in George's  _us_. "Yes, of course," she agreed delicately. "Thanks to us."

It had become an unspoken rule in 35 Portland Row that the subject of Lucy Carlyle was taboo—unless Lockwood brought her up first, which he had yet to do in the two weeks since her departure. This new rule was slightly below the bagsy rule in importance, but rising fast. If left unchecked, it would soon eclipse even the biscuit rule, George reflected glumly.

If Lockwood had picked up on the slight tension between his colleagues, he didn't let on—just turned another page of  _True Hauntings_. "Will you come along tonight, Holly?" he asked without looking up, "Even if it is just a Stone Knocker, we could use the extra pair of hands."

“Of course,” Holly replied, her tone carefully neutral. They lapsed into silence until George struggled out of his George-shaped indentation in the sofa and announced his intention to go practice in the rapier room. "I'll put the kettle on and bring you some tea when you're done," volunteered Holly. She followed him past Lucy's empty chair and out into the hall.

 

* * *

 

As George had predicted, that evening's case was more than usually dull. The house was old, but it was well-maintained and cheerfully decorated in pastel pinks and yellows—not the sort of place that struck fear into anyone's heart. The Visitor they’d been commissioned to neutralize was indeed a Stone Knocker. It was a weak presence, even for a Type One—so weak that it took the three of them a frustratingly long time to locate its Source, which turned out to be a pearl button hidden in the bottom of an ancient sewing box in the attic. As if to add insult to injury, not even the attic was spooky, an observation which George chose to grouse aloud as he and Holly swept up their unnecessary circle of iron filings.

"I mean, who wants to haunt a pleasant, homey attic like this one? Nobody! They'll never attract any good ghosts like this." He ran an index finger along the top of a mustard yellow hatbox and held it out as evidence.

Holly paused in her sweeping to squint at it. "It looks filthy enough to me." 

"That's not the hatbox—my finger was already like that," protested George. "The point is that no self-respecting Visitor would sink to haunting this place. Just look at it! What color would you say those walls are, periwinkle? Probably the most twee attic in London." He sat back on his heels with a huff. "Remember Lavender Lodge, Lockwood? Now  _that_  was a proper attic."

"Yes," Lockwood's tone was clipped as he repacked the equipment bag. "I remember. It was less than a month ago, George." 

"Was it?" said George absently, "Huh. Guess it feels like longer because so much has changed since then." 

"You shouldn't be wishing for stronger Visitors, George. There's no such thing as a 'good' ghost." He turned to Holly, who was kneeling on the floor beside the lantern, picking up the last few stray filings. "Would you pass me the lantern, Lucy?"

As one, the three remaining members of Lockwood & Co. froze. It was, George thought, sort of like one of those embarrassing moments when you slip up and call your primary school teacher "Mum" by accident. Only worse, because your mum probably hasn't shown up on your doorstep out of the blue one day, gradually become an integral part of your life, formed deep bonds of friendship, loyalty, and trust with you, and then abandoned you without so much as a by-your-leave. 

After a few seconds of loaded silence, Holly passed Lockwood the lantern and went back to sweeping as if she hadn't noticed anything amiss, and in fact answered to the name "Lucy" all the time. She had recovered a few seconds too late, though—the damage was done. The thin veneer of normalcy that the three of them had so meticulously maintained over the past few weeks was shattered. George and Holly knew, and Lockwood knew that they knew, that Lucy's departure troubled him far more than he let on. The ghost of Lucy Carlyle haunted his every step, more formidable even than the real ghosts he destroyed, and it would take far more than salt and iron to drive her away.

 

* * *

 

The whole situation was made still worse by the numerous traces Lucy had left behind, scattered throughout 35 Portland Row like unwelcome Easter eggs. Her sketches and scribbled notes covered the thinking cloth, her favorite rolls were stacked in the pantry. The book she’d been reading at the Wintergarden house still rested on an end table in the library, Holly had inherited an old pair of her fingerless gloves, and George could have sworn that the faint smell of her flowery shampoo still lingered on the stairs to the attic. For George (and, he suspected, for Lockwood as well), stumbling across these traces felt like that moment when you awake from a wonderful dream and remember, in the harsh light of morning, that none of it was real. 

Except that Lucy _had_ been real—still was real, somewhere out there. George tried not to wonder where she was and what she was doing. He might even have succeeded at this if it hadn’t been for Lockwood, whose determined avoidance of the topic of Lucy only served to highlight everything that was wrong in her absence.

As it was, the whole thing was becoming unbearable. George considered saying something to Lockwood about it, but didn’t really know where to start. It wasn’t his habit to pry, or push things, or encourage other people to open up and talk about their feelings—that was Lucy’s area (the irony of this was not lost on George.) Still, he was getting tired of this new sulky and remote version of Lockwood. Something would have to be done.

The morning after their leader’s awkward slip, George managed to corner Holly in the kitchen while she was filling salt bombs. He made sure that the repetitive, muffled _thwack_ of Lockwood’s rapier striking straw was audible from downstairs before speaking.

“So, Holly,” he began, trying and failing to sound casual, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you noticed anything strange about Lockwood’s behavior lately?”

Holly paused in fastening the top of a salt bomb. “Yes. He’s been out of sorts since—” she lowered her voice almost to a whisper— “since Lucy left.” She frowned. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Me neither,” admitted George, “but don’t you think we should do _something_? Talk to him, or...something like that?”

Holly eyed him curiously.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing. It’s just that I wouldn’t have expected to hear that from _you_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” George grumbled. Ignoring the pinkness rising in his cheeks, he plunged ahead. “Listen, I’m not suggesting anything drastic. But he’s been like this for two weeks, and nothing’s gotten better.”

Holly shifted from foot to foot like a skittish horse, as if she half-expected Lockwood to pop out of the refrigerator and accuse her of meddling. “I don’t know,” she wavered, “It’s not really our business.”

“Isn’t it? We’re the ones who’ve got to work with him,” George pointed out.

Holly didn’t seem too convinced. “Well, yes, but don’t you think—” She fell abruptly silent and went back to filling salt bombs with renewed gusto. The sound of a plimsolled tread on the bottommost step alerted George to their leader’s impending entrance.

“Guess my time’s up,” he muttered, and went to put the kettle on for elevenses.

  

* * *

  

That evening found Lockwood and his two employees hunkered down in their basement office. Lockwood flipped idly through a society magazine, Holly polished the suit of armor for the umpteenth time, and George's loud chewing echoed off the walls as he guzzled his way through a packet of crisps, jotting down perfunctory notes for the casebook with his free hand. The ceaseless _crunch-smack-crackle_ sounds he was making soon became too much for Holly, who crossed to her desk and switched on an internet radio station rather than risking a confrontation.

It had the welcome effect of drowning out George's crunching, but the affected falsetto of the woman crooning about surrendering to love was barely more tolerable, and even Holly found herself faintly relieved when the song ended.

She had just finished polishing and begun to dust the rearranged Sources on the top shelf when the opening bars of the next song, a soft guitar number, floated out from her speakers. Holly froze in mid-swish, nearly knocking over the shriveled pirate hand she'd been dusting and managing to attract George’s attention. He gazed around the room, alarmed by the desperation Holly was radiating, but found nothing amiss. After a moment of puzzlement, it occurred to him that the music must be the source of her distress. He caught her eye and mouthed "What?"

Holly cut her eyes in the direction of the speakers, then in the direction of Lockwood, still absorbed in his magazine. She took a tentative step toward her desk, but it was too late—the first lines of the song had been released into the basement like a Visitor from an iron coffin.

_Lucy takes the long way home_

Oh. That. _Now_ George understood Holly's unease.

_Meets me in a field of stone_

Well, that part wasn't so bad. With any luck, Lockwood wouldn't be paying attention to the lyrics.

_She says 'I don't know how I'm supposed to feel_

_My body's cold, my guts are twisted steel'_

George risked a peek at Lockwood out of the corner of his eye. There was no definite indication that he'd been listening to the music, but he had ceased turning pages and gone completely still.

As the gentle male voice emanating from the speakers went on to say something about Frankenstein, George and Holly exchanged a warily optimistic glance. Their moment of clandestine relief was ended by the soft  _slap_  of a magazine falling shut.

As if to mock their predicament, a mournful violin inserted itself into the song. George gritted his teeth and silently prayed that the name "Lucy" would not show up again in the lyrics.

_So underneath a concrete sky_

_Lucy puts her hand in mine_

Great. Just _great_. George and Holly regarded each other helplessly, unsure whether to switch off the song and risk drawing even more attention to it now that the damage appeared to have been done.

_She says 'life's a game we're meant to lose_

Holly's teeth sank into her glossy lower lip. George steeled himself for whatever was coming next.

 _‘Stick by me and I will stick by y—’_  

The last syllable was drowned out by the scrape of Lockwood's chair on the floor as it was shoved back with such violence that it tipped over and thunked against the wall.

"Right," he said calmly, tossing the magazine onto his desk. "Think I'll turn in early." The next thing George and Holly knew, his footsteps were echoing up first one flight of stairs, then another.

There was a crash from up on the landing, followed by the sound of Lockwood's door slamming shut with rather more force than was usual. A tremor ran through the house, rattling the silver-glass-encased Sources on the shelves. Somewhere above them, a lock slid shut with a dull click. George and Holly continued to look at each other, wide-eyed. Neither spoke.

In the sudden silence, the music seemed almost offensively loud.

_‘...like a princess in a castle high,_

_Waiting for a kiss to bring me back to—’_

Without ceremony, Holly shut it off.

 

* * *

 

"It's not fair," griped George a few minutes later as he and Holly swept up the remains of the Polynesian Ghost Chaser. "I miss Lucy too. Why are _we_ the ones who've got to tiptoe around _him_?"

"He's the boss," Holly shrugged. "But you were right, George. Things can't be allowed to go on like this." She heaved a sigh and sat back on her heels.

"Can say that again," George agreed, brushing more debris into the dustpan. "We've got to fix things before he loses it and kicks a puppy over 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' or something."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's hard and weird not to know how your day begins)
> 
> Lockwood and Co more like Awkwood and Co amirite
> 
> This chapter brought to you by angst. Also the song Holly and George are freaking out about is Jeremy Messersmith's "A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard."
> 
> Thanks for reading. Your kudos and comments are so incredibly appreciated!


	3. things that go bump in the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening: Mountain Sound - Of Monsters and Men
> 
> (so I packed my things and ran
> 
> far away from all the trouble
> 
> I had caused with my two hands)

"Give me one good reason why I should wear a dress."

Delia Wells looked at me as if I had just questioned why the sun rose every morning.

"Uh, because it looks good? Just try this one on, Lu. I promise you'll like it." Her tone made it clear that she knew best and I was not to question her. Had she been anyone else, I might have flat-out refused, but it was difficult to say no to Delia, and she knew it. Her smug expression as I wriggled out of my skirt and jumper and tugged the dress over my head was proof of that.

"This is stupid," I grumbled under my breath as she fussed over me, tugging at the dress until it fell in precisely the right way. Delia said nothing, just grabbed my shoulders and steered me over to the full-length mirror. 

Reluctant as I had been to try the thing on, I had to admit she was right. It did look good. Up until then I had sort of assumed that all dresses fell into either the Holly Munro category (too prim and cutesy) or the Fittes anniversary party category (too formal.) This one was neither of those things. It was short, swingy, and black, with silver stitching at the seams. It wasn't something I would have chosen for myself, but I liked it.

I wasn't about to admit that to Delia, though. Not that I needed to. Judging by the self-satisfaction she was radiating, she must have read it on my face. "See? Told you. It shows off your legs. Now if you would just wear heels with it—"

"I'd sprain an ankle every three steps? Not happening, Delia. No heels." Tough as it was to say no to her, I'd quickly learned that with Delia, it was mostly a matter of choosing my battles.

"Fiiiine. Boots it is," Delia huffed, flopping onto her bed in defeat. "But you're letting me take a weed whacker to those eyebrows."

I shrugged. "Okay."

"And trim your hair a tiny bit."

"Fine."

"And dye the ends pink."

" _No_."

“Neon orange?"

I threw a pillow at her head.

 

* * *

 

Makeover-related disagreements aside, I got along well with Delia. She wore all of her flaws on the surface, like crude tattoos she was nevertheless proud of. Her energy wasn’t quite _infectious_ , but it nudged at your palm like an eager dog until you found yourself going along with whatever she wanted just to see where you ended up. In many ways, she was like Lockwood—they had the same kind of magnetic charisma that drew you in and made you want to follow them, please them, gain their approval. Delia too was reckless, determined, loyal, and a little bit cocky. She lacked Lockwood’s air of mystery, though—on the contrary, she had a tendency to overshare, and I soon knew way too much about her thoughts, feelings, opinions, and habitual drunken encounters with the opposite sex.

Rina Wells was more of an enigma. She rarely spoke more than a few words at a time, but when she did, she was surprisingly insightful. Sometimes her observations were unnerving in their accuracy, but it was difficult to remain uncomfortable around Rina for long. Instead of making her seem aloof, her silences radiated a friendly tranquility. Even though she didn’t say so aloud, you could tell she wished you well. The role of responsible elder sister to wild social butterfly Delia suited her perfectly.

It was almost 3 o’clock in the morning by the time we’d clunked up the stairs to their Southwark townhouse that first night, Delia towing me along by the shared handles of a bag of extension cords. Number fourteen, Windermere Place wasn’t exactly _new_ , but neither was it falling apart. From their sleek, minimalist design, I guessed that most of the houses in the neighborhood had been built a decade or two after the Problem sprang up, when all things ultramodern were in vogue. Number fourteen had since been well maintained, and though I hadn’t exactly been added to the lease yet, all the evidence suggested that the place hadn’t come cheap. 

This impression strengthened when I stepped inside. The house had seemed modest in size from out on the street, but indoors it was open and airy enough to be called spacious. The high ceiling was punctuated by two rectangular skylights. The furniture was simple, stylish, and invitingly plush. The place was clean, but not _too_ clean—there was just the right amount of clutter (Holly Munro would doubtless have found one or two areas to rearrange or dust.) The whole interior had an air of _thoughtfulness_. I wondered if Rina had been in charge of the decorating—I had only known the sisters for a few hours, but “thoughtful and understated” didn’t seem like Delia’s style.

I was still standing just inside the doorway, absorbing the details, when the third and final resident of 14 Windermere Place made himself known. I looked down to find a fluffy gray cat weaving around my legs, meowing for attention. Delia introduced us with an offhand “Oh, that’s Geronimo. You’re not allergic, are you, Louise?” 

“No. Why is he called Geronimo?” I’d asked, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.

“Oh, you’ll see,” Delia had replied as she’d plonked her guitar case down in the middle of the floor (it was immediately picked up and relocated by Rina; Delia was obliged to drop 50p into a half-full glass container marked “Irresponsibility Jar” for the transgression.)

The house had three stories. The basement served as a storage and practice room, much like the basement of 35 Portland Row. Different parts of the L-shaped open area on the ground floor were kitchen, living room and dining room. A door off the living room led to Rina’s bedroom, while Delia occupied the master suite that took up most of the top floor. The only other room upstairs was a small library-slash-study that was really just a glorified closet, and which no one seemed to spend much time in.

My room was a loft, perched halfway between the two upper floors like an afterthought. It was bigger than the attic of 35 Portland Row, but still little more than a large balcony. It was open, explained Rina apologetically as she helped me settle in, to the kitchen and living room below, and though an opaque half-wall sealed me off visually and afforded some privacy, it was impossible not to hear everything going on on the ground floor. There was also the possibility of falling over the top of the wall, which only reached up to waist-height and which Rina immediately banned me from using as a shelf or a seat (probably wise, given my track record of jumping and falling from high places.)

My arrival at 14 Windermere Place was very different from my first day at 35 Portland Row. For one thing, it was three in the morning. For another, there were no interviews or macabre tests, no forbidden rooms to wonder about, no inquiries about my past or secretive behavior on the part of my new employers. Like their floor plan, the Wells girls were open about everything, and answered all of my questions without hesitation.

So they were American?

Half. Their father was American, and they’d grown up in Richmond, Virginia, but their mother was a British-Chinese dental hygienist from Surrey.

What did their father do?

He was dead, but before that he’d been some kind of businessman—he’d sold something for the American branch of the Sunrise Corporation (neither sister seemed to know exactly what.) He and their mother had finalized their divorce on Rina’s seventh birthday.

Why had they come here?

This question was met with a bit more cageyness. Delia prodded at her eggs with her fork (we were eating an extremely early breakfast.) “Well. It’s complicated, I guess. Starting around middle school, I became kind of a…challenge.”

“She got into fistfights,” translated Rina, speaking up for the first time.

“Yeah, that,” admitted Delia. Her breezy, unconcerned air had begun to feel forced. “My older sister was an out lesbian, so people used to tease me, talk shit about Ri. You know, stuff like that. Not that any of it was Rina’s fault, of course. I’d probably have picked fights anyway. But whatever. It got so bad that Dad decided to send me to some boarding school in Connecticut. Willow Creek Academy for Obscenely Rich Youths, or something.”

“ _Delia_.” It was impressive, the way Rina could condense several sentences’ worth of scolding into three short syllables.

“Fine, Willow Creek Academy for _Troubled_ Youths. But the tuition was a fortune. And the whole thing was ridiculous anyway,” Delia scoffed, stabbing at her pile of eggs. “My only _real_ trouble was that I had a father who mistook a bit of healthy teenage rebellion for my being _troubled_. And decided that some bullshit therapeutic boarding school was the solution.”

“What was it like there?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” answered Delia with her mouth full. She swallowed her eggs, turned back to me with a conspiratorial grin. “We ran away two days after I found the enrollment forms in Dad’s office. We weren’t going to let him separate us, so we came here. At first, we thought we’d go live with Mom, but we realized pretty quick what a bad idea that was. Dad would have found us with her and taken us away, and we’d’ve been right back where we started. So instead, we were homeless for a while.”

I looked up from the pattern I was tracing on their kitchen table. “How old were you?”

“Mmm, fourteen and sixteen, I think. This was eight years ago. It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds— we weren’t, like, _homeless_ -homeless. We lived in a hotel for two weeks, and then we, um, found gainful employment.”

Evidently, Delia was either embellishing or downplaying something again, because Rina heaved a sigh.

“Would you _stop_ with the despairing sighs and the judge-y faces? I’m _getting_ to it!” scolded Delia. She met my eyes. “We were relic-men. Or I guess relic-women,” she stated matter-of-factly. She watched me as though waiting for me to be scandalized, but I just nodded (I’d spent enough time with Flo Bones that the scandal surrounding relic-men had pretty much worn off.) Instead of being shocked and horrified, I tried picturing Delia in Flo’s putrid, mud-coated blue puffer jacket—but couldn’t quite manage it. I hadn’t known her very long, but I suspected that Delia would rather subject herself to a decade of troubled youth boarding school than be caught dead wearing anything of Flo’s.

It was difficult to tell whether Delia was disappointed or impressed by my lack of a reaction. One corner of her mouth quirked upwards; she leaned forward and continued. “We’d always known we had Talent—Rina could hear ghosts decently and sort of Touch things, and I had killer Sight back in the day. But we’d never really _used_ our Talents before. It’s different in America—the Problem is newer, and so is the country, so there are fewer ghosts. And there are no private agencies—everything’s one big government department.”

“The Bureau of Supernatural Phenomena,” I supplied. I knew all about how the US dealt with its Visitors—studying international approaches to the Problem is part an agent’s training.

“Yeah, the BSP. Some people prefer to call it BS,” She winked. “Catchier than DEPRAC, you’ve got to admit. The point is, the demand for agents is lower there, and the screening processes are more selective. Eleven’s the minimum age for trainee agents, and they don’t let anyone in with heart problems or asthma or anything.” I vaguely remembered reading the same while revising for the written portion of my Third Grade test.

“So yeah, we never went through the screening process or became agents—wasn’t like we needed the money.” She shrugged. “Still, we got chances to try out our Talents. There may be fewer ghosts per square kilometer in the US, but we grew up in Virginia, where you can’t spit without hitting a Civil War battlefield. There were plenty of Visitors around, and we could see them. So it sort of made sense that we became relic-girls once we got here. We finally put our Talents to good use.” She was once again watching me out of the corner of her eye as if she half hoped I’d challenge this statement, so naturally I didn’t.

“We did most of our jobs for a black market dealer called Onion. Raids on antique shops, usually. A few houses and museums.”

I abandoned my attempt to appear cool and indifferent. Combing the shore for relics like Flo did was one thing, but burglary? And _Onion_? What kind of a sinister relic-man name was that? At least “Gravedigger Sykes” and “Flo Bones” made sense. I floundered for a few seconds, then managed: 

“So you were thieves?” 

Delia didn’t break eye contact. “You think so? _I_ think we were removing dangerous artifacts from the public sphere.” Her hands moved through the air as she grew more impassioned. “It’s no different than being an agent, really. We helped people. They were clueless adults—they had no idea how dangerous the stuff they were handling was. All it would have taken was one evening working late in the shop, and _boom_! Ghost-touched. We saved them from that.”

“ _Delia_.” Rina didn’t seem to agree with this assessment.

“Fine, it was stealing! We broke in after dark and nicked stuff. Happy now?” Delia rolled her eyes at her sister. “What else were we meant to do? We were minors who had come here illegally, it wasn’t like we could get jobs with a proper agency, or…or flip burgers or anything. And besides, we were practically saints compared to all the _other_ relic-men. Onion’s all right—she only sells artifacts to people who really know how to handle them, not to ghost-cults and wackjobs. And we didn’t—didn’t rob graves or anything.” Delia’s eyes flickered over and met Rina’s for a tense moment, as if waiting for her sister to object again. “Well, mostly we didn’t…you know what, it’s not important.” She folded her hands on the table and seemed to collect herself. “The point is, we were relic-women. Good ones. But we aren’t anymore.”

“Why did you quit?” I asked. I wondered how recently their Talents had faded.

For the first time since I’d met her, Delia looked sheepish. “Because I got ghost-touched.”

“Ghost-touched?” I guessed there was more to the story.

Delia twisted a lock of purple hair around her finger. “We’d been flying under the radar for almost three years. No one knew where we were. Then I got ghost-touched while out on a job, and Ri had to choose between taking me to the hospital and being found by the authorities, or letting me swell up, turn blue, and die.”

“Easy choice,” said Rina. Both sisters were solemn for a second, remembering. I didn’t blame them—just thinking about how Lockwood had been ghost-touched at Sheen Road was enough to ruin my mood whenever the memory resurfaced.

The moment passed; Delia resumed her story. “So there we are, in the hospital, waiting to be, like, extradited back to Dad’s or something, when we get a call. Not from Dad, but from his lawyer.” She looked away, still somber. “Dad was dead. He’d dropped dead of a heart attack six months before. And he’d left us everything. A lot of money, basically. We still haven’t used it up.”

“So then you became musicians.”

Delia snorted. “‘Musicians.’ That makes it sound like we play the cello in fancy concert halls.” She shot me a crooked grin as if to let me know that I was forgiven for my ignorant remark. “We couldn’t exactly put ‘relic-woman’ on our résumés and go get a nice respectable job as a secretary or whatever. And we’d always liked music—Dad made us each choose an instrument when we were little so it would look good on college applications. Starting a band just felt right, I guess.” She shrugged. “We have day jobs, of course—I work in a record store and Rina gives piano lessons. Did she tell you she also plays piano?”

“No,” I answered, looking over Delia’s shoulder at the shiny black upright piano in the corner of the living room. She followed my gaze. 

“Oh, right. I guess that’s obvious. Anyway. The band is our real _career_ , you know? The thing we’re passionate about, what we feel we’re meant to be doing.”

I felt an odd tug in my chest at this. I noticed Rina watching me carefully, her expression inscrutable.

For a minute, the only sounds were the clinking of forks on plates as we finished our eggs. Then Rina asked if I’d like to hear about how their previous manager had eloped with their bassist. Delia was eager to fill me in on “the whole sordid story,” and the last few minutes before we went to sleep were filled with her sensationalized account.

 

* * *

 

I had not been asleep for long when something made me jolt awake. There was no transition, no groggy in-between—one instant I was asleep and the next, awake and aware. But aware of what, exactly?

It was like that long-ago moment when I’d awakened with the ghost of Annie Ward in my room: something wasn’t right. It was more difficult to pinpoint this time—my surroundings were unfamiliar. I listened, I looked. It was no use. I couldn’t say whether the patch of shadow in the corner was supposed to be there or not, whether the hunched silhouette between me and the open door was a chair or a Changer. This was not my home. I had nothing but the faint stirring of the air, the goosebumps spreading up my arms, and the conviction that I was not alone in the room.

A wave of fear and longing crashed over me as I lay there, feeling utterly helpless. Everything was so different and _wrong_ this time. I remembered careening down the stairs of 35 Portland Row and throwing myself into Lockwood’s room, remembered the feeling of safety as he’d stood between me and the looming dark, wielding his ridiculous toy mobile.

I could have run downstairs to Rina, or upstairs to Delia. But what use would that have been? Against the supernatural, they were even more helpless than I was. _I_ would have to protect _them_. I was on my own.

There, just beyond the foot of the bed—a sound, so soft it was almost below the threshold of hearing. I held perfectly still, tried to slow my breathing while panic clawed at the inside of my chest. There it was again—louder this time. In the dark space between my bed and the half-wall overlooking the living room, something _rustled_.

Dread pooled in my belly. I ordered myself to snap out of it, shoved the self-pity away. My rapier was on the floor, propped against the nightstand a mere arm’s length away. I could reach it, if only I could manage to stop shaking and force my muscles to _move_.

A flash of movement—a frantic skittering that shattered the dim predawn silence. The _something_ heaved itself up and over the wall, out into the air above the living room, and plummeted toward the floor below. My heart was in my throat and my rapier was in my hand—I’d moved without thinking, jerking halfway off the bed and into a sloppy defensive position. 

A faint, metallic squeak from below—couch springs.

The couch was just outside Rina’s bedroom door.

Without hesitation, I plunged down the stairs, taking them two at a time, wheeling around the corner and into the living room just as Rina’s door swung open. I dived in front of her, lashing out with my rapier at the threat.

“Louise. _Louise_! Stop!”

It took me a moment to remember that “Louise” meant me. I paused, slowly lowered my rapier. Behind me, Rina heaved a sleepy sigh.

“It’s okay, Louise. I’m sorry. I thought Delia warned you.” She gestured at the couch, now illuminated by the shaft of light that spilled from her doorway.

Crouching among the cushions, regarding me with wide-eyed confusion, was the fluffy gray cat.

_Why is he called Geronimo?_

_Oh, you’ll see._

It was lucky for Delia that she was asleep upstairs at that moment. I wanted very much to kick her.

 

* * *

 

Like anywhere, 14 Windermere Place had its share of quirks—Geronimo the thrill-seeking cat foremost among them. Fortunately, the band-managing aspect of my new situation wasn’t challenging in the least.

At first I worried that the Wellses were expecting Holly Munro-like levels of efficiency, but these fears turned out to be groundless. Rina and Delia were so used to managing all their own affairs that every time I spoke to a venue over the phone, arranged for transportation, or advertised for a new bassist, they were too delighted by the fact that they hadn’t had to do these things themselves to worry about the quality of my work. They seemed to expect very little from me during the day—it was my work as bodyguard, not manager, that they truly relied upon. This meant that I was expected to accompany them to every performance—and they were booked nearly solid. While they sometimes played large events like the festival where I’d first encountered them, mostly they played bars and smaller clubs, sometimes as often as four nights per week. Those first two weeks, I dragged myself dutifully along to every performance and tried to make myself useful. In light of the incident with Nate and Kyle, I was usually allowed to lurk in the wings, if there was a stage, or the kitchen if there wasn’t. It didn’t take long to fall into a pattern of spending my nights standing around sipping cups of tea and cocoa, listening to my employers’ musical raging against the machine until the early hours of the morning.

On the whole, it was almost as exhausting as being an agent—almost. Over the first two weeks, we only encountered one ghost: a mostly-harmless Shade that I steered the Wells girls and several bystanders around and then neutralized with iron before it could cause any trouble. 

Rina and Delia made no secret of how glad and relieved they were to have me then. Just as Kipps had explained in Kensal Green, young adults whose Talents had recently faded had a bad time of it when faced with ghosts, and the Wellses were no exception. Like other formerly Talented people in their mid and early twenties, they were still heavily affected by ghost-lock and creeping fear, but being unable to sense the source of their terror left them more vulnerable than older adults, who as a rule were less susceptible to psychic side effects.

On the night we encountered the Shade, Rina was left trembling and unsteady on her feet. Delia and I each took an arm and steered her the last few blocks to that night’s venue, a small-but-trendy underground concert hall in Soho. Delia immediately dispatched me to track down water and ‘something caffeinated,’ allowing me time to savor how relieved I was that I’d arranged to transport all of our instruments and equipment to the hall earlier that afternoon. It was the first time in my (admittedly brief) tenure as manager of The Well Well Wells that I’d truly been on top of things. Distracted as I was by concern for Rina and satisfaction with the way I’d handled everything, I failed to notice the lanky ginger-haired boy seated against the wall until I tripped over his legs.

I managed to catch myself against the wall before I toppled into a faceplant, but it was a near thing. The boy apologized profusely as I steadied myself.

When I looked up, it was into a pair of overlarge glasses. They were black-rimmed and perched on the boy’s nose in a way that suggested they were a fashion statement rather than a necessity—the kind of glasses George would have disapproved of.

“Awfully sorry,” said the boy. He was about my height, with a guileless smile so wide it threatened to split his freckled face in half. Satisfied that I was alright, he held out a hand. “I’m Cody Mulroney,” he said.

“Lu—Louise Kipps,” I told him, stumbling over my false name for the millionth time.

There were footsteps from behind me—Delia rounded the corner, followed by her elder sister, who already looked much better than she had a few minutes ago.

“Mulroney,” greeted Delia in a flat voice as she came to a halt beside me, “How nice to see you. I see you’ve met our new manager, Louise.”

Before Cody Mulroney could reply, the door behind him opened and three people emerged.

The tallest was a long-nosed, thin-faced young man with artfully tousled hair. He might have been good-looking if not for the decidedly unattractive sneer his features were twisted into. Beside him, a dark, willowy girl in galaxy print leggings was appraising me with poorly-concealed scorn.

In front of them, positioned so as to make it clear that she was their leader, stood a second girl, so chic and radiant that I felt instantly smaller and plainer by comparison. She was dressed and made up so as to display every feature to its best advantage. Her long brown hair fell in the same pseudo-grunge layers as Delia’s, but rather than dyeing all of it, she’d limited herself to a single pastel turquoise streak. 

“Did I hear that right, Delia? You _finally_ hired a new manager? Let’s hope this one works out better than the last!” She extended a hand to me and let it wilt as if she were a princess greeting suitors at a ball. I gave it a brief, perfunctory shake. “Jillian Courtenay,” she trilled, “lead singer and guitarist of Starbottle.” 

The second Jillian had opened her mouth, I’d disliked her. Her tone was more patronizing than ten Holly Munros, and the way she was smirking at Delia and Rina made me want to smack her perfect face.

And it seemed like I wasn’t alone in that desire. Rina remained stoic as ever, but for the briefest of moments, Delia looked as though she could have cheerfully ripped Jillian’s throat out. Then the look was gone, replaced by a smile of the sort usually sported by sleazy politicians, used car salesmen, and pageant queens.

“Jillian! How _lovely_ to see you. Yes, this is our new manager, Louise Kipps. Louise, this is Starbottle, a small, local band.”

Was it my imagination, or had Jillian’s smirk twitched at the word “small?”

Her hundred-watt smile growing brighter by the second, Delia introduced me to the rest of Starbottle. The tall, sneering boy was Atticus Pitt, their keyboardist. The olive-skinned girl was Lauren Shah, their drummer. And Cody Mulroney, it turned out, was Starbottle’s bassist. This struck me as odd—his endearing gawkiness didn’t match the snobbery and preening of the others. He looked a few years younger than the rest of them, too —somewhere in his  late teens, I guessed. Maybe they just hadn’t had time to turn him into an insufferable git yet.

With introductions out of the way, Delia plowed ahead. 

“So, Jillian. Care to explain what you all are doing in our dressing room? Louise specifically reserved it for The Well Well Wells.” This was true—I had called in that morning.

“Oh dear,” said Jillian, matching Delia’s affable tone, “it seems there’s been a mix-up! You see, _our_ manager, Mr. Alexander Hastings of Islington Talent, specifically reserved it for _us_.”

If I leaned sideways, I could make out the sign on the dressing room door. Signs, actually. Together, taped one on top of the other, they read “STARBOTTLEELLS.”

“Did he really?” said Delia. “And have you changed your name to Starbottle Eels? Because it seems more likely to me that _someone_ got lazy and just taped your sign on top of ours after we’d already reserved the place. Must have been the hall’s management. How terribly unprofessional.”

“We spoke to management earlier,” piped up Lauren Shah, “and they said that since one of our members is _injured_ ,” she gestured to Atticus Pitt, whose left wrist was in a brace, “we were entitled to use the dressing room.”

“So sorry, Delia! Bad luck. We’d let you have it, but poor Atticus has just gotten over the most crippling case of carpal tunnel,” simpered Jillian.

“How mildly inconvenient,” said Delia. “My sister, on the other hand, has just had a close call with a ghost and is suffering the aftereffects of malaise, ghost-lock, and creeping fear. But don’t worry about us! We’ll just deal with it out here in the hallway.” Even filtered through Delia’s phony smile, the last few sentences were unmistakably sarcastic. Cody looked up at Rina with concern.

Jillian, however, refused to be guilted. “You girls are such good sports, aren’t they, Lauren? How sweet of you to open for us _and_ let us have the dressing room.”

“Open for you? We’re meant to be going second.” Color was rising in Delia’s cheeks.

“There’s been a change in the lineup,” said Jillian, “we have to go second. Atticus’ hand, you know.”

Delia’s cheery facade was precariously close to slipping. For a few seconds, it was touch and go—I braced myself for an outburst.

It didn’t come. Instead, it was as if a switch had gone off somewhere in Delia’s head—she was back, her phony smile brighter and more devious than ever. A dismissive little hum came from the back of her throat, as if it was all the same to her who opened for whom and who got the hall’s only dressing room.

“Just as well, then. Ri and I have played this venue before, and half the audience always leaves between acts,” she said, with a brief glance at her nails to show how little she cared. “But I was thinking,” she continued, “we should perform together for _real_ sometime. Not in a hall like this,” she gestured around derisively, “but somewhere more…unofficial. Edgier. Did you all play at Insomnia last month? We must have missed you.”

It was Jillian’s turn to bristle. “We didn’t—we decided to skip it this year,” she faltered. “But as for a joint concert…what a _brilliant_ idea. I’m sure The Well Well Wells could use the publicity.”

“Funny you should mention publicity,” said Delia. “I was just about to suggest a friendly wager. Let’s see…how about whichever band attracts the smallest audience forfeits all future dressing room rights and has to open for the other for an entire year?”

Jillian’s smile looked as if it were hurting her cheeks. “Sounds like a plan,” she purred. “We’re in. Shall we say next Friday? You all can pick the place.”

“Great,” said Delia. “Next Friday in Nunhead Cemetery, then.”

That wiped the grin off of Jillian’s face fast. Everyone knew that Nunhead Cemetery was one of the most dangerous places in London. After preliminary attempts to clear it of Visitors resulted in the deaths of two agents and a Night Watch kid, the whole thing had been sealed off with iron and declared unsafe. These days, it was a vast, overgrown jungle full of winding paths, gaping mausoleums, and crumbling monuments. Oh, and the highest concentration of murderous ghosts anywhere in the country—possibly even the world.

“Nunhead?” hissed Lauren. “Are you insane?”

“Come on, Jillian, this isn’t worth dying for. The idea is _mad_ ,” pleaded Cody.

“How would we even get in? The whole thing’s blocked off,” Atticus scoffed.

“Oh, leave that to us,” said Delia breezily. “It’s no problem if you know what you’re doing. Of course, if you all don’t want to risk it—”

“No,” interrupted Jillian. She fixed her smirk back into place and narrowed her eyes at the three of us. “Nunhead it is. We’ll see you there.” Then she swept back into the dressing room, determined to have the last word. Atticus, Lauren, and a reluctant Cody trailed in after her.

We were alone in the hallway. Delia let out a breath. Slowly, as if trying to put the moment off for as long as possible, she turned to look at her sister.

Rina’s expression was enough to make both of us wince.

“Nunhead Cemetery,” she snarled. “ _Nunhead. Cemetery_.”

It looked as though Delia was going to have to empty her whole bank account into the Irresponsibility Jar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (some had scars and some had scratches
> 
> it made me wonder about their past)
> 
> Sorry about the huge delay between updates—apparently family issues + writer's block = gargantuan chapter populated by 15,000,000 OCs. 
> 
> If you'd like to pester me for updates in the future, you can hit me up on tumblr where I'm sassy-jar-skull.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading/commenting/kudosing!


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